Prime Focus World Is Exclusive VFX and 3D Conversion Partner on 'Sin City: A Dame to Kill For'

LOS ANGELES, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 08/22/14 -- Prime Focus World (PFW), the global visual entertainment services company, has collaborated with Troublemaker Studios and Aldamisa Entertainment on Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. PFW was the exclusive VFX and 3D conversion partner for the much-anticipated sequel, directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, based on Miller's cult graphic novels. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is distributed by The Weinstein Company and hits U.S. theaters Aug. 22.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is PFW's largest undertaking to date, and as an exclusive creative partner with an equity stake in the film, the company was integral in helping to bring the movie to the big screen.

"Throughout our development as a company we have always taken on big challenges," said Namit Malhotra, Founder and Global CEO, Prime Focus World. "These challenges provide opportunities for the company to step up to the next level, and push us to become better. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For was our biggest challenge yet."

Director Robert Rodriguez was full of appreciation for PFW's contribution to the film. "It was a lot for a single company to take on. They were the underdog, trying to compete with these big f/x houses, and at the end of the day, they delivered."

Achieving Rodriguez's vision for the film -- and translating Frank Miller's unique style from comic book page to big screen -- meant that each and every shot would be heavily reliant upon the talents of PFW's global VFX and stereo teams. The massive 2,282 shot workload would need full concept and production design, VFX and stereo creation within a short schedule of just 8 months, requiring PFW's engagement on a global level and putting the company's business model to the ultimate test.

"Our production teams worldwide were managing a show of immense scale, which would traditionally go to multiple VFX companies," said Merzin Tavaria, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Director, Prime Focus. "We have a track record of taking the impossible and making it possible, and this is what we did on Sin City: A Dame to Kill For."

The creative challenges were also significant. Early conversations with Robert Rodriguez revealed that the vision for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For was a complete upgrade from his original 2005 movie, to deliver a film in which each frame was stylized to match the look of Frank Miller's graphic novels. Unlike the previous film, which used partial sets and production design, Robert Rodriguez sought to push the visual effects further by shooting entirely against green-screen, requiring PFW to develop the world of Sin City from the ground up.

"Essentially, everything except the live action performances had to be created by the artists of Prime Focus in the computer, which was a very exciting opportunity," said Sin City: A Dame to Kill For VFX Supervisor Stefen Fangmeier.

Another advance on the original was that this time the action was in 3D. The stereo process required a separate workflow, its own pipeline, and its own team of artists in Mumbai and in Vancouver. PFW Senior Stereographer Justin Jones led the stereo teams, working directly with Rodriguez to create another layer of style and design through the 3D, in order to fully engage the audience.

"Our hybrid approach to this show was the only way to go," said Justin Jones, PFW Senior Stereographer. "We had the best of both worlds: the native photography that Robert captured looks beautiful, with fantastic levels of detail; and we also retained full control over the stereo in the environments because we were creating them from scratch. Also, due to our proprietary toolset, we were able to adjust the stereo in the native capture when we needed to, giving us full control to design the best possible stereo experience."

Every PFW department was engaged on this show. Technology teams worked closely with the R&D department to generate and deploy tools that promoted consistency between shots and seamless integration across all locations; production put in place workflows that would deliver the shots in the short timeframe; and the global leadership team orchestrated the balance of resources that allowed PFW to simultaneously deliver work on some of the biggest films of the summer, including Transformers: Age of Extinction, Guardians of the Galaxy and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

"I'm incredibly proud of the team and the way the whole global construct of Prime Focus has come together in achieving something that I don't believe any other single company worldwide would have been able to do," concluded Namit Malhotra. "This was an opportunity to not only put our best foot forward creatively and technically, but also to take the next step financially. This was a huge commitment: to our filmmaking partners, in helping to make this movie happen; to the industry, in showing that there is another way for companies such as Prime Focus to engage; and to our own future. I'm delighted with the way this has played out."

About Prime Focus WorldPrime Focus World is a filmmaking partner to production companies and studios, providing pioneering digital production services on a global scale. For more information and to see Prime Focus World's complete filmography, please visit primefocusworld.com.

Blockchain. A day doesn’t seem to go by without seeing articles and discussions about the technology. According to PwC executive Seamus Cushley, approximately $1.4B has been invested in blockchain just last year. In Gartner’s recent hype cycle for emerging technologies, blockchain is approaching the peak. It is considered by Gartner as one of the ‘Key platform-enabling technologies to track.’ While there is a lot of ‘hype vs reality’ discussions going on, there is no arguing that blockchain is b...

Blockchain is a shared, secure record of exchange that establishes trust, accountability and transparency across business networks. Supported by the Linux Foundation's open source, open-standards based Hyperledger Project, Blockchain has the potential to improve regulatory compliance, reduce cost as well as advance trade. Are you curious about how Blockchain is built for business? In her session at 21st Cloud Expo, René Bostic, Technical VP of the IBM Cloud Unit in North America, discussed the b...

ChatOps is an emerging topic that has led to the wide availability of integrations between group chat and various other tools/platforms. Currently, HipChat is an extremely powerful collaboration platform due to the various ChatOps integrations that are available. However, DevOps automation can involve orchestration and complex workflows. In his session at @DevOpsSummit at 20th Cloud Expo, Himanshu Chhetri, CTO at Addteq, will cover practical examples and use cases such as self-provisioning infra...

"Storpool does only block-level storage so we do one thing extremely well. The growth in data is what drives the move to software-defined technologies in general and software-defined storage," explained Boyan Ivanov, CEO and co-founder at StorPool, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 16th Cloud Expo, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.

You know you need the cloud, but you’re hesitant to simply dump everything at Amazon since you know that not all workloads are suitable for cloud. You know that you want the kind of ease of use and scalability that you get with public cloud, but your applications are architected in a way that makes the public cloud a non-starter. You’re looking at private cloud solutions based on hyperconverged infrastructure, but you’re concerned with the limits inherent in those technologies.

Is advanced scheduling in Kubernetes achievable?Yes, however, how do you properly accommodate every real-life scenario that a Kubernetes user might encounter? How do you leverage advanced scheduling techniques to shape and describe each scenario in easy-to-use rules and configurations? In his session at @DevOpsSummit at 21st Cloud Expo, Oleg Chunikhin, CTO at Kublr, answered these questions and demonstrated techniques for implementing advanced scheduling. For example, using spot instances and co...

As Marc Andreessen says software is eating the world. Everything is rapidly moving toward being software-defined – from our phones and cars through our washing machines to the datacenter. However, there are larger challenges when implementing software defined on a larger scale - when building software defined infrastructure.
In his session at 16th Cloud Expo, Boyan Ivanov, CEO of StorPool, provided some practical insights on what, how and why when implementing "software-defined" in the datacent...

A strange thing is happening along the way to the Internet of Things, namely far too many devices to work with and manage. It has become clear that we'll need much higher efficiency user experiences that can allow us to more easily and scalably work with the thousands of devices that will soon be in each of our lives. Enter the conversational interface revolution, combining bots we can literally talk with, gesture to, and even direct with our thoughts, with embedded artificial intelligence, whic...

The cloud era has reached the stage where it is no longer a question of whether a company should migrate, but when. Enterprises have embraced the outsourcing of where their various applications are stored and who manages them, saving significant investment along the way. Plus, the cloud has become a defining competitive edge. Companies that fail to successfully adapt risk failure.
The media, of course, continues to extol the virtues of the cloud, including how easy it is to get there. Migrating...

The use of containers by developers -- and now increasingly IT operators -- has grown from infatuation to deep and abiding love. But as with any long-term affair, the honeymoon soon leads to needing to live well together ... and maybe even getting some relationship help along the way. And so it goes with container orchestration and automation solutions, which are rapidly emerging as the means to maintain the bliss between rapid container adoption and broad container use among multiple cloud host...

Imagine if you will, a retail floor so densely packed with sensors that they can pick up the movements of insects scurrying across a store aisle. Or a component of a piece of factory equipment so well-instrumented that its digital twin provides resolution down to the micrometer.

In his keynote at 18th Cloud Expo, Andrew Keys, Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise, provided an overview of the evolution of the Internet and the Database and the future of their combination – the Blockchain. Andrew Keys is Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise. He comes to ConsenSys Enterprise with capital markets, technology and entrepreneurial experience. Previously, he worked for UBS investment bank in equities analysis. Later, he was responsible for the creation and distribution of life settle...

The need for greater agility and scalability necessitated the digital transformation in the form of following equation: monolithic to microservices to serverless architecture (FaaS). To keep up with the cut-throat competition, the organisations need to update their technology stack to make software development their differentiating factor.
Thus microservices architecture emerged as a potential method to provide development teams with greater flexibility and other advantages, such as the abili...

Product connectivity goes hand and hand these days with increased use of personal data. New IoT devices are becoming more personalized than ever before.
In his session at 22nd Cloud Expo | DXWorld Expo, Nicolas Fierro, CEO of MIMIR Blockchain Solutions, will discuss how in order to protect your data and privacy, IoT applications need to embrace Blockchain technology for a new level of product security never before seen - or needed.

As DevOps methodologies expand their reach across the enterprise, organizations face the daunting challenge of adapting related cloud strategies to ensure optimal alignment, from managing complexity to ensuring proper governance. How can culture, automation, legacy apps and even budget be reexamined to enable this ongoing shift within the modern software factory?
In her Day 2 Keynote at @DevOpsSummit at 21st Cloud Expo, Aruna Ravichandran, VP, DevOps Solutions Marketing, CA Technologies, was jo...

Blockchain. A day doesn’t seem to go by without seeing articles and discussions about the technology. According to PwC executive Seamus Cushley, approximately $1.4B has been invested in blockchain just last year. In Gartner’s recent hype cycle for emerging technologies, blockchain is approaching the peak. It is considered by Gartner as one of the ‘Key platform-enabling technologies to track.’ Whil...

The nature of test environments is inherently temporary—you set up an environment, run through an automated test suite, and then tear down the environment. If you can reduce the cycle time for this process down to hours or minutes, then you may be able to cut your test environment budgets considerably.
The impact of cloud adoption on test environments is a valuable advancement in both cost saving...

Blockchain is a shared, secure record of exchange that establishes trust, accountability and transparency across business networks. Supported by the Linux Foundation's open source, open-standards based Hyperledger Project, Blockchain has the potential to improve regulatory compliance, reduce cost as well as advance trade. Are you curious about how Blockchain is built for business? In her session a...

ChatOps is an emerging topic that has led to the wide availability of integrations between group chat and various other tools/platforms. Currently, HipChat is an extremely powerful collaboration platform due to the various ChatOps integrations that are available. However, DevOps automation can involve orchestration and complex workflows. In his session at @DevOpsSummit at 20th Cloud Expo, Himanshu...

BnkToTheFuture.com is the largest online investment platform for investing in FinTech, Bitcoin and Blockchain companies. We believe the future of finance looks very different from the past and we aim to invest and provide trading opportunities for qualifying investors that want to build a portfolio in the sector in compliance with international financial regulations.

"Storpool does only block-level storage so we do one thing extremely well. The growth in data is what drives the move to software-defined technologies in general and software-defined storage," explained Boyan Ivanov, CEO and co-founder at StorPool, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 16th Cloud Expo, held June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City.

You know you need the cloud, but you’re hesitant to simply dump everything at Amazon since you know that not all workloads are suitable for cloud. You know that you want the kind of ease of use and scalability that you get with public cloud, but your applications are architected in a way that makes the public cloud a non-starter. You’re looking at private cloud solutions based on hyperconverged in...

Is advanced scheduling in Kubernetes achievable?Yes, however, how do you properly accommodate every real-life scenario that a Kubernetes user might encounter? How do you leverage advanced scheduling techniques to shape and describe each scenario in easy-to-use rules and configurations? In his session at @DevOpsSummit at 21st Cloud Expo, Oleg Chunikhin, CTO at Kublr, answered these questions and de...

As Marc Andreessen says software is eating the world. Everything is rapidly moving toward being software-defined – from our phones and cars through our washing machines to the datacenter. However, there are larger challenges when implementing software defined on a larger scale - when building software defined infrastructure.
In his session at 16th Cloud Expo, Boyan Ivanov, CEO of StorPool, provid...

A strange thing is happening along the way to the Internet of Things, namely far too many devices to work with and manage. It has become clear that we'll need much higher efficiency user experiences that can allow us to more easily and scalably work with the thousands of devices that will soon be in each of our lives. Enter the conversational interface revolution, combining bots we can literally t...

It has never been a better time to be a developer! Thanks to cloud computing, deploying our applications is much easier than it used to be. How we deploy our apps continues to evolve thanks to cloud hosting, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and now Function-as-a-Service.
FaaS is the concept of serverless computing via serverless architectures. Software developers can leverage this to deploy an indiv...

The use of containers by developers -- and now increasingly IT operators -- has grown from infatuation to deep and abiding love. But as with any long-term affair, the honeymoon soon leads to needing to live well together ... and maybe even getting some relationship help along the way. And so it goes with container orchestration and automation solutions, which are rapidly emerging as the means to m...

Imagine if you will, a retail floor so densely packed with sensors that they can pick up the movements of insects scurrying across a store aisle. Or a component of a piece of factory equipment so well-instrumented that its digital twin provides resolution down to the micrometer.

In his keynote at 18th Cloud Expo, Andrew Keys, Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise, provided an overview of the evolution of the Internet and the Database and the future of their combination – the Blockchain. Andrew Keys is Co-Founder of ConsenSys Enterprise. He comes to ConsenSys Enterprise with capital markets, technology and entrepreneurial experience. Previously, he worked for UBS investment b...

The need for greater agility and scalability necessitated the digital transformation in the form of following equation: monolithic to microservices to serverless architecture (FaaS). To keep up with the cut-throat competition, the organisations need to update their technology stack to make software development their differentiating factor.
Thus microservices architecture emerged as a potential ...

Product connectivity goes hand and hand these days with increased use of personal data. New IoT devices are becoming more personalized than ever before.
In his session at 22nd Cloud Expo | DXWorld Expo, Nicolas Fierro, CEO of MIMIR Blockchain Solutions, will discuss how in order to protect your data and privacy, IoT applications need to embrace Blockchain technology for a new level of product se...

Bitcoins are a digital cryptocurrency and have been around since 2009. As a substitute for legal tender, they are becoming the rage for investors and others but because there is no government agency auditing or performing regulatory oversights, you wonder if it is the perfect breeding ground for electronic nano crime. Since the introduction of the Bitcoin, some competitors have emerged and the who...

As DevOps methodologies expand their reach across the enterprise, organizations face the daunting challenge of adapting related cloud strategies to ensure optimal alignment, from managing complexity to ensuring proper governance. How can culture, automation, legacy apps and even budget be reexamined to enable this ongoing shift within the modern software factory?
In her Day 2 Keynote at @DevOpsSu...

Leading companies, from the Global Fortune 500 to the smallest companies, are adopting hybrid cloud as the path to business advantage. Hybrid cloud depends on cloud services and on-premises infrastructure working in unison. Successful implementations require new levels of data mobility, enabled by an automated and seamless flow across on-premises and cloud resources. In his general session at 21st...

Nordstrom is transforming the way that they do business and the cloud is the key to enabling speed and hyper personalized customer experiences. In his session at 21st Cloud Expo, Ken Schow, VP of Engineering at Nordstrom, discussed some of the key learnings and common pitfalls of large enterprises moving to the cloud. This includes strategies around choosing a cloud provider(s), architecture, and ...

Cloud computing budgets worldwide are reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars, and no organization can survive long without some sort of cloud migration strategy. Each month brings new announcements, use cases, and success stories.